At drinks parties and dinners, if someone asks what I do for a living, I always say: "Synthetic chemist … I make new molecules … especially those that shouldn't exist." People typically respond that they were not very ...

The investigation of light absorbing organic semiconductors is important for the development of lightweight flexible solar cells. Replacing sulfur atoms in commonly used, polymer-based solar cells with tellurium atoms results ...

A new, environmentally-friendly electronic alloy consisting of 50 aluminum atoms bound to 50 atoms of antimony may be promising for building next-generation "phase-change" memory devices, which may be the data-storage technology ...

Thermoelectric materials can be used to turn waste heat into electricity or to provide refrigeration without any liquid coolants, and a research team from the University of Michigan has found a way to nearly double the efficiency ...

For years, researchers have developed thin films of bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) – which converts heat into electricity or electricity to cooling – on top of gallium arsenide (GaAs) to create cooling devices for electronics. ...

When placed next to a bar magnet, an aluminum ball draws gently towards the magnet. In contrast, a ball made of silver moves out of the magnetic field. The mechanisms underlying these different behaviors are known as paramagnetism ...

A team led by Johns Hopkins engineers has discovered some previously unknown properties of a common memory material, paving the way for development of new forms of memory drives, movie discs and computer systems that retain ...